A bill allowing all veterans to receive official identification cards through the Department of Veterans Affairs is on its way to President Barack Obama’s desk. The House approved the bill unanimously late Tuesday. Supporters say the bill should minimize the threat of identity theft and make it easier for veterans to prove their military service.

Senior Defense Department medical leaders addressed health care reform on Capitol Hill recently, expressing concern over potential impacts on military medical readiness and overall readiness. Military health care reform was examined as part of the overall Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission, which sent its recommendations to President Barack Obama in January.

The Pentagon has offered a detailed response to a slate of proposed military pay and benefits reforms, rejecting the idea of overhauling the military health care system but giving a cautious green light to fundamentally changing military retirement benefits. President Obama is holding off on endorsing controversial recommendations to reform the military retirement and healthcare systems. The president said a recommendation to reform the retirement system needs more study, given its complexity.

The push to reform military pay and benefits advanced when the White House signaled potential support for the proposals that call for changing the military retirement and health care systems. But the administration stopped short of endorsing the 15 specific recommendations of the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission. The White House will offer more details by April 30 about whether President Obama supports the recommendations or will seek to revise them.

President Obama is standing by Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki despite two prominent veterans groups calling for his resignation. Bothe the American Legion and Concerned Veterans for America have called for Shinseki to step down following revelations that veterans at VA hospitals across the country died waiting for care.

Air Force Times – RANCHO MIRAGE, CALIF. — President Obama on Saturday signed separate measures into law to lift the federal debt limit and restore benefits that had been cut for younger military retirees.

Obama signed the bills during a weekend golf vacation in Southern California.

The debt limit measure allows the government to borrow money to pay its bills, such as Social Security benefits and federal salaries. Failure to pass the measure, which the Senate passed 67-31 earlier this week and sent to Obama for his signature, …

For veterans seeking disability compensation, the application process is supposed to be so easy that a handwritten note on a napkin will initiate a claim or an appeal.

An Obama administration proposal would change that, and veterans groups are sounding the alarm.

The Department of Veterans Affairs says the many ways that requests for disability compensation arrive actually hamper its ability to administer benefits, and contribute to a claims backlog that has about 400,000 veterans waiting more than 125 days for a decision.